Iheoma Uzomba

A Recollection of Self

I am two full shades of an august morning
ripe and unblossomed
but let's pretend this is a poem
and I am more worried about
an ocean drinking back its moans
until it is gutted into dryness
than the gradual sloughing of my memory.
Like all things preened to bloom & fasten
I refuse to see the twin motion
of this ocean rising on tidal wings
only to crash again
& the uneven soaring
of a young bird one mile away.
Because I know that even dieing
is not death enough until you fall
& don't rise; until you've tasted bits
of yourself and can hardly resist
ceding to a course more unsteady
than being. So I do not pause
to crop further tufts of this yearning.
When the ocean crashes once more
I rise on its back with these words
coming to life on a piece of stray paper:
I am two full shades...
I live and I die.

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Iheoma Uzomba is currently a student of English and Literary Studies at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Her works feature in Kissing Dynamite, The Rising Phoenix Review, Fact-Simile Editions, Dreich Magazine, The Muse (a creative and critical print journal) and elsewhere. She considers music and writing two beautiful artforms to best express herself.